I can’t remember a “first time”. I feel like I’ve either been cooking or baking since I was a very small child. My grandmother (my mom’s mother) lived with us - she had moved here from Sweden before my mother was born, and when she lived in Sweden, had had a family bakery. I’ve been either baking or cooking with her since I was itty bitty, and between that, helping my mom, 4H, and girl scouts, I’ve been doing it for almost ever.
Cute Missy anecdote: Some of my grandmother’s recipes were just in her head - she would make them, and as she was, I’d measure out what she had done/used, and would write it down so we’d have an official recipe. I didn’t spell real well when I was really small. Still don’t. But when I took those old handwritten recipes I had done all those years ago, scanned them, and made them part of a family cookbook I made for my mom and brother/sister in law one Christmas, the happy tears sure were a-flowin’.
Some of my earliest memories are making cookies and other treats with my mother, but I think when I finally flew solo, so to speak, was not long after we got a microwave when I was maybe 6. I discovered that I could make scrambled eggs and some other dishes pretty easily, so Mom and Dad ate microwaved scrambled eggs every Saturday and Sunday for a while there, until I got tired of making them.
I made eggs in the microwave at an early age. I remember telling my friend in Girl Scouts that I did this, so probably before 6th grade.
I also remember making Steak-Umms at a fairly early age…which is weird because I don’t like using the stove, and the grease splatter would have scared me. But I made a lot of Steak-Umms!
I can’t remember the first time, but I would often make my mother omelets for breakfast starting at around age 10 or 11. Around that same time, I also got into baking stuff like granola bars and simple drop cookies. I didn’t really get into cooking and understanding it until I was about 23. I cooked quite regularly before then, but it didn’t all quite gel and I didn’t really feel I understood what I was doing or why until my early-mid 20s.
I always helped my grandmother from garden to plate. I don’t remember but I have a photo of us shelling beans when I was no more than a toddler. I was the pot-stirrer (lol even back then!) and the bowl licker, and always put in charge of cooking something. She brought home kids’ cookbooks from the library all the time and I would try them all. We canned every year. I remember being in charge of dropping tomatoes in boiling water with a slotted spoon, then my grandmother would quickly wipe the skins away. We did pickles with cucumbers and watermelon rinds.I don’t remember cooking any one particular thing because we did so much in the kitchen back then.
Canned soups and stuff around 5. For multi-pot starting at something approaching “raw” actual cooking, pasta and sauce or maybe meat over the grill - both around 8-ish.
(My mother is such a horrible cook we not only started cooking for ourselves young but my brother and I were born the same day 11 years apart. The family simply couldn’t have survived two of her cakes a year)
Aww, Missy, that reminds me of my granny and me in the kitchen.
I remember scrambling eggs, making hot cereal and pancakes around seven or so. When I was nine, my granny came to live with us. She was blind and infirm, but still could hang out in the kitchen. We had no washer or dryer (unless you counted the clothesline out back), so my mom had to go to the laundromat a couple of evenings a week to do laundry for a houseful of kids, a husband who got dirty for a living and an invalid mother.
Granny would toodle out to the kitchen and tell me how to fix whatever was on the menu for supper and it would be ready when Mom got home from doing laundry and Dad from work.
Cookies from a recipe in a Sesame Street funbook. They could be colored with those colored sugar grains and shaped into letters, numbers, or whatever! I was probably six or seven. OK, my mom probably worked the oven, but my mind has embellished that part away. Also, that was the pinnacle of my cooking ability. Man, I wish I could still bake those cookies!
I was frying and steaming eggs and making oatmeal in elementary school, although I don’t rightfully remember exactly when or what I tried cooking first, probably around 10 or 11 and probably oatmeal. I also grilled a lot of cheese sandwiches and cooked a lot of Kraft Dinner.
Yeah, I was the oldest and my mom worked all the time trying to support us three kids. Dad was too sick to pay child support. So I did get an early start.
But when I took those old handwritten recipes I had done all those years ago, scanned them, and made them part of a family cookbook I made for my mom and brother/sister in law one Christmas, the happy tears sure were a-flowin’.